


After the Fall

by thedevilchicken



Category: Ben-Hur (1959)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken





	After the Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Destina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/gifts).



In the end, there is only one thing that matters to him.

It isn’t love, though his mother and his sister, perhaps Esther, perhaps even Arrius, inspire it in him. It’s far from compassion, far from the fervour of religion or a passion for his people, though to varying degrees and depths he’s felt them all. It isn’t even hatred, though he’s hated Messala through five long years by now. So much has happened, but it is no longer hate that he feels.

He wore the laurel wreath after his victory. He left it by the door as he entered the chamber where what was left of his boyhood friend was lying; he’d felt no need to gloat then, because how could he taunt a dying man? Of course Messala did; Judah watched his death and felt sick as his hatred for the man slipped away. His mother, his sister, were lepers and he would lay the blame on the Tribune for that; Messala was, in the instant of his death, transformed. He was no longer Enemy but the last vestige of a life he had tried to lead.

They’d grown together, over the years. It was Judah’s native land but Messala seemed to fit in there with it, as if there had never been a time when Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of Judea, had not been destined to cherish the Roman Messala. There were games, scuffles in the dirt where tunics were stained or torn and their mothers sighed knowingly as their fathers planned their next lessons. They learned side by side, the lessons of Rome though behind the doors of his home Judah learned the falsehood of the Roman gods. The only immortal that Messala had believed in was Rome herself.

They trained together. Swords and spears, shields and daggers, they learned to hunt and they learned to fight, laughing as sweat prickled at their tanned skin beneath the hot Judean sun. They drank from the well, the cool water quenching one thirst, and he’d watched the stray droplets wind their way over neck, shoulder, chest, once Messala had tipped out the vessel over his close-cropped hair. Late at night the image haunted him. The Greeks had espoused the idea but Rome and Judea frowned at least in token.

Hot days wore on and in that bliss of heat and joy and endless time as they grew from children to men, little seemed to matter but the moment. Wrestling, a proper Roman sport, became a little more. Lingering touches, Messala’s dark laughter, and Judah kissed him. There could never be a betrayal between them. There could only be this perfect lifetime stretching out before them, from that moment until death.

Judah understands his foolishness. He sees how it all has changed.

Standing over the body, he could only see his friend and how Rome had corrupted him. The ideals that made the Empire great would destroy Judah’s world and he knew it; they’d come so far since ‘Down Eros, up Mars’, the simple philosophies of boyhood or the lessons of their youth that held no water in the world of men. He misses his friend. He misses the nights where they met outside the city, talking by the river till it was almost too late to sleep. He misses the nights they made love beneath the stars, their shared body heat enough to make the cold night hot.

Messala’s body was smooth back then, muscular, blemish-free, the picture of Roman health and appeal. Judah ran his hands over that body as he rested against him, above him, and Messala smiled as he wrapped his arms tight around his waist. Judah misses this. It’s just a shame he can’t undo everything Messala did, a shame he hadn’t died in the galleys, a shame he’d become Young Arrius. Messala’s body was smooth back then but it ended it broken. He didn’t wish for a way to turn back time; he knew they’d all do everything exactly the same as they always had.

Still, now that it’s over he still can’t feel relief. All he wants is peace after everything that’s occurred. He’ll have fond memories, of course, and of those there are so many. He hopes that one of these days he’s going to forget, that new memories of his life with Esther can erase everything he had with Messala, but he knows that will never be.

In the end, there was never a chance that they could be friends; they were always destined to be different, separated by cultures and locations, by morals and philosophy until friendship was rendered only briefly possible. Messala wanted nothing more than a life of power and glory in the service of Rome. Judah simply wished him gone from the lands of his people as much as he willed him to be close. He loved him, hated him, needed him, and utterly despised him. And now, he misses him, even in the serenity of his new life.

But in the end, it seems there is only one thing that matters to him. And that’s his regret.


End file.
